I've been leaning Hillary for months. Last night, walking to my car after attending a literary reading, I realized why: I trust her to fight. I trust her to battle, wage war, get what she wants to get. Not just in the intra- and inter-party skirmishes between now and November, but for the entirety of her Presidential term.

Eight years ago, like many progressively-minded Democrats, I was bamboozled by Obama, thinking that because he was more authentically left-leaning than Hillary, he’d be a better candidate. But Barrack, as relatively good has he's been, was not a fighter. He wasn't even, really, an idealist. Or a utopian. Bernie, at least, is an idealist. But I don't think he's a fighter, a brawler, a take-no-prisoners crusader. Anyone can jump on a soapbox.

We like to believe that Presidents are made in November. That’s a lie. Presidents are made on Inauguration Day and what comes afterwards. Presidents aren’t the sum total of their campaign promises; they’re the sum total of their accomplishments. In order to accomplish things, you need to be willing to take a punch. You need to be willing to fight. Hillary’s that fighter. No one has taken as many punches, and withstood them all as admirably, as Hillary Clinton. And no one in the Democratic Party is willing to fight as ruthlessly as Hillary Clinton.

Many Hillary supporters perceive electability as her greatest asset. However, for me, that’s a non-issue. I'm not convinced Bernie would lose in November—most of the polling data shows Bernie would likely win in a straight-up race against Donald Trump—but he'd lose just about every legislative battle during his term. He’s not built for a brawl. And he's not made for the ugly business of coalition building. He's not made for reaching across the aisle and nailing down an expedient single-issue commitment from an adversary who otherwise disagrees with him on almost every other issue imaginable.

A couple of years into his presidency, Obama pretty much shirked the battles he should have been waging. I think he was genuinely taken aback by the intransigence of Republican legislators and the animosity he provoked in many sectors of the country. His oratory was fine, at times even fiery, but too often he wrung his hands and opted for non-confrontational high roads. Or moan that his powers to affect change were limited vis à vis the political realities he faced. I respect Obama. I respect his intelligence. But hand wringing ain’t the most effective trait when called upon for leadership.

I can’t ever imagine Hillary wringing her hands.

Bernie, I’m not so sure about. Yes, on the campaign trail addressing cheering throngs of like-minded voters, Bernie expressions passion, concern, and a powerful left-leaning vision for change. But a Presidency isn’t a campaign trail speech. The Presidency requires a day-in, day-out battle.

Hillary is battle-tested. For many many years, she has been one of the most aggressively progressive figures on the national stage. For 20+ years, she’s stood up to the Republicans’ foulest slurs, their worst and most idiotic conspiracy theories. The reason Republicans fear her is that they know she has the intelligence, and the persistence, to stick to her guns and effectively strategize routes towards legislative accomplishments.

Let’s be honest: as compelling an agenda as Bernie Sanders lays out, how many people believe he’ll be able to translate that into effective change? Will there be enough legislation victories to balance out all the utopian ideas that don’t stand a snowball’s chance?

To put it another way: Hillary’s going to be able to accomplish a lot more than Bernie. You know that. I know that. Her vision isn’t as far-reaching as Bernie’s, put she’s got more brawl and a finer, more astute political skills.

The other thing to consider is money. And coattails.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe Bernie is electable given that his likely Republican opponent will be an odious bully. But just because Bernie can win a November election does not mean he’ll have the down-ballot coattails to sweep other Democrats into office. Because of the perceived taint of Sanders’s “socialism,” Democratic candidates in purple and red states will distance themselves from him. Republican attack ads with paint viable Democratic congressional candidates as being Socialist Dupes. That’s not going to help our party’s chances in taking back the Senate.

Money.

Fact: No one—but no one—raises money like a Clinton.

Bernie’s people like to believe money is a dirty word. To some extent, I agree with them.

However, a sitting President becomes his or her party’s Fundraiser-in-Chief. They don’t just raise money for themselves; they raise money for the good of the entire party. As the Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary will be called in to raise money in Senatorial, House, and Gubernatorial races. Bill and Chelsea, both effective fundraisers in their own right, will be out there, raising money and winning races for Democrats.

Errata #1: Last night, Aubrey Hirsch gave a fantastic reading at Virginia Tech’s Moss Arts Center. Reading selections from her short stories and her nonfiction pieces, I was impressed by the range of her work. One audience member commented that he thought the voice Hirsch uses in her nonfiction and fiction remains constant. I didn’t see that as much. Instead, I was impressed by how remarkably different, tonally, her approaches were between the genres. Hirsch employs a wonderfully quirky dazzle in her short fiction. But in non-fiction, her voice and vision struck me as more penetrating. Both are amazingly compelling.

Among the pieces she read was a short story-in-progress about a kidnapping. The piece seemed so real, and so complete, with a perfect arc. And yet, she explained it was only a first draft. I was startled to learn afterwards that, in its present form, it was only about 500 words long. A piece of flash fiction. As she read it aloud, I had in my mind’s eye a perfect vision of the story, its characters, and its emotions. To accomplish all that in 500 words is truly amazing.

Errata #2: Another piece of my non-fiction (“Why We Need Snow Monsters”) will soon be appearing in Entropy. It’s a mash up of Yetis and Breughels, complete with digressions about depression and Tolstoy and phantasmagoric short fiction. I’ll post a link next week when the essay’s online.

A friend of mine is going through an emotional upheaval. She’s in her forties, married, with two children. She is no longer effervescent. She tells me that she is incapacitated by sadness and fear. Things are happening in her life that drain her of her will to live.

“What kind of things?” I ask.

“Family things,” she whispers.

Because she won’t tell me, I fear the worst. Though I’ve asked, she refuses to tell me exactly what is happening. She’s painfully shy, secretive about the things she cherishes most. To better cope with her inner turmoil, she’s taken up smoking again. Whatever happened has affected her for months, yet she cannot bring herself to tell another living soul about it.

In an email, she writes about the weight she’s lost since whatever happened happened—“down to down to [x lbs], my weight at time of marriage--but I look fabulous!” Because I know her to be sensitive about her appearance, I read this as a proud boast. I write back that this is good news, but what I really think is how profound her depression must be to have caused this loss of appetite.

A couple of weeks ago, an article on MSNBC.com caught my eye. A woman who survived a lupus-induced stroke tells of how impressed her friends of her resulting severe weight loss.

“The crazy thing was people thought I looked great because I was so thin. They'd ask if I was working out and I didn't have one muscle. You could see every bone protruding out of my shoulders, my elbows, my wrists.”

She tried to tell people how dire her weight loss was, how much it jeopardized her health, yet her friends prodded her for diet tips.

“It was like the skinnier I got, the more I heard about how great I looked. Men, in particular, thought my body looked fabulous. I'm like, ‘Wow, that's really sick. I have to be anorexic to make you think I'm attractive.’”

Stories like this get to me. I’ve been writing a novel lampooning how obsessed we can be with false ideas of feminine beauty. Much has been written elsewhere about the psychologically damaging effects that our culture’s focus on body image can have on women, yet it still startles me to see how alarmingly short-sighted people can be. What’s the value of weight loss when it is achieved as a consequence of emotional despair? Or life-threatening medical conditions?

When beauty is concerned, misplaced priorities are rampant.

Earlier this month, Jane Fonda appeared in Harper’s Bazaar. The occasion? A new movie by the two-time Oscar-winning actress? A new political cause for this activist who has helped shape public opinion about crucial events for over forty years? Nope. Appearing in a revealingly sheer Stella McCartney dress, the 73-year-old Fonda announces to the world that she is still beautiful.

Fonda, who has an artificial hip and an artificial knee (“I set off as many bells and whistles at an airport as I did [at a Cannes fashion show.]”), freely concedes vanity. She still has the need to show off her figure. “I wear what will show off my best parts, which are my waist and my butt.”

While I have nothing against people taking pride in their personal appearance, it’s appalling that someone as accomplished as Fonda feels she can only assert her continued relevance through brash boasts of youthful beauty. Beauty is confining pedestal. One senses from reading Fonda’s comments that its pursuit has obscured her ability to take satisfaction from other facets of her life.

One needn’t be a cynic to suspect that a septuagenarian’s the outward appearance of beauty is maintained by a fair amount of make-up and, perhaps, cosmetic surgery. Beauty is a wasteful pursuit. Worldwide, the cosmetics industry raked in $170 billion in 2007 (the most recent year for which I can locate reliable figures). Anti-aging facial serums are the most expensive products. A 1.7 ounce jar of La Prairie “Cellular Cream Platinum Rare” will set you back a cool grand at Neiman Marcus.

Do these products work? A 2005 Forbes article suggested maybe not. While the cosmetic industry touts these products as “clinically proven” to reduce wrinkles, their studies lacked clinical control groups to test their findings. As Forbes writes, “If these studies were repeated using, say, olive oil, or even a generic lotion of any kind, it is possible that the results would be the same.”

Dollars are not the only thing that being wasted in the pursuit of beauty. Anxieties and false expectations are being needlessly thrust upon women.

I feel sorry for Fonda.

“I was raised in the '50s,” Fonda says. “I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly. He was a good man, and I was mad for him, but he sent messages to me that fathers should not send: Unless you look perfect, you're not going to be loved.”

As a father of a six-year-old girl, I hope never to wittingly or unwittingly impart that same message.

As much as we like to believe that we’ve washed away the blatant sexism that has existed to subjugate or otherwise limit opportunities for women in our society, the expectations we place on women to maintain physical beauty place them at a tremendous disadvantage. Just think of how much time Fonda put in over the years maintaining the comeliness of her butt. Now think of all that she might have accomplished with that time had she devoted it to some other cause.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, when Hillary Clinton still fiercely contested for the Democratic nomination, Michael Kinsley wrote a Washington Post thought piece about how much time candidates spent each morning readying their physical appearances. Whereas a man can quickly shower, brush his hair, and toss on a suit, greater care is expected from women. Attention must be given to the color co-ordination of their wardrobe. They must apply make-up and style their hair. Sadly, appearances matter as much as policy stances. Should a hastily made-up female politician greet an audience or television interviewer, votes would likely be lost.

“In most occupations this 20 minutes doesn't make much difference -- especially compared with the disproportionate time that women still spend housekeeping and child-rearing. It will make no difference after the election; no one will care if the president is well-coiffed when answering that 3 a.m. phone call. But in a close-fought election campaign, every minute counts. If you figure 20 minutes a day over a year and a half of 14-hour days and six-day weeks, it comes out to an extra two weeks of campaigning or sleep for a male candidate.”

Just as no one really cares what a president may look like at 3 a.m., I doubt anyone really cares about the state of an actress’s derriere. When a friend emails us at three a.m. with her emotional woes, we don’t really care if she’s lost a lot of weight lately. We don’t ask about the wrinkles that might be crowing her eyes, or the brand of lipstick she might be swishing over her lips. What we want is her emotional well-being, which seems to be the first thing we lose sight of when our thoughts turn to beauty.